Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority

by Mona Arshi, Karen McCarthy Woolf

Revitalising conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics, this new gathering of African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices is both urgent and inspirational.

There has been a welcome surge of nature writing in recent years. Yet this has raised questions as to whose voices are privileged and heard in a space predominantly occupied by Western European traditions and authors. In Nature Matters, poets Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf seek to redress this imbalance. Their genre-enriching anthology presents brand-new commissions alongside formative works from the past fifty years that invite us to reconsider nature poetry from global-majority perspectives. Image-rich and formally diverse, the poems explore fundamental and ecological themes including climate crisis and the Anthropocene; urban nature, solitude and alienation; protest and radical empathy; Indigenous wisdom and alternative histories.

"A vigorous and timely hymn to the universality of nature. It's amazing that Nature Matters hasn't existed until now." - Sathnam Sanghera

"An exquisitely profound and groundbreaking testament to our natural world by many of the most powerful poetic voices of our times." - Bernardine Evaristo



Victoria Adukwei Bulley, John Agard, Jason Allen-Paisant, Moniza Alvi, Anthony Anaxagorou, Raymond Antrobus, Mona Arshi, Andre Bagoo, Khairani Barokka, Dzifa Benson, Jay Bernard, Sujata Bhatt, Malika Booker, Kamau Brathwaite, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Mary Jean Chan, Kayo Chingonyi, David Dabydeen, Fred D’Aguiar, Kwame Dawes, Imtiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Inua Ellams, Richard Georges, Lorna Goodison, Mina Gorji, Will Harris, Ranjit Hoskote, Sarah Howe, Ian Humphreys, Sharan Hunjan, Ishion Hutchinson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anthony Joseph, Bhanu Kapil, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Zaffar Kunial, Hannah Lowe, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Roy McFarlane, Nick Makoha, E. A. Markham, Momtaza Mehri, Kei Miller, Daljit Nagra, Karthika Naïr, Grace Nichols, Selina Nwulu, Gboyega Odubanjo, Oluwaseun Olayiwola, Nii Parkes, Sandeep Parmar, Pascale Petit, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Alycia Pirmohamed, Nina Mingya Powles, Taz Rahman, A. K. Ramanujan, Nisha Ramayya, Shivanee Ramlochan, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Roger Robinson, Denise Saul, Seni Seneviratne, Olive Senior, Warsan Shire, Jeet Thayil, Marvin Thompson, Derek Walcott, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Rushika Wick, Jennifer Wong and Benjamin Zephaniah

Genres: Poetry, Nature

200 pages, Hardcover

Published September 16, 2025

About the author

Mona Arshi worked as a Human rights lawyer at Liberty before she started writing poetry. Her debut collection Small Hands won the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015. Mona’s second collection ‘Dear Big Gods’ was published in 2019 (both books published by Liverpool University Press’s Pavilion Poetry list). She has taught and mentored extensively including the Arvon/Jerwood mentorship Programme and the Rebecca Swift Women’s Poetry Prize. Mona has judged both the Forward and TS Eliot prizes as well as the National Poetry Competition . She makes regular appearances on radio and has been commissioned to write both poems and short stories. Her poems and interviews have been published in The Times, The Guardian, Granta and The Times of India as well as on the London Underground. She is currently writer in Residence at Cley Marshes with the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. Her debut novel Somebody Loves You will be published with And Other Stories in Autumn 2021. She has recently been appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Liverpool. Mona is currently editing a book of black and Asian poetry ‘Nature Matters’ with Karen McCarthy Woolf which will be published in Spring 2023 by Faber books.

Reviews

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

KANDACE SIOBHAN WALKER
Neopet
—it's a circle, right? Virtual pet websites are about wealth accumulation. Wealth accumulation is about class. Class is about domination, and domination, of course, is about popular consensus. Popularity is about currency. Currency is points. Points are about buying commodities. Commodities are weapons and armour and property and paint-brushes.
Paintbrushes are about customising your Neopet to look like a wizard and or a gold bust or a fairy or cloud spirit, but pretty much everyone wants a baby paintbrush. Baby paintbrushes are about making everything really cute. And making everything really cute is just reimagining normal stu in a palette of pastels and puppy eyes. Puppy eyes are about maternal instinct.
Maternal instinct is about the gendered division of labour. The division of labour is about owners and masters. Owners and masters, even when they're six-year-olds, are about capitalism (and its precedents). And capitalism and its precedents are about wealth accumulation, which brings me back to—

one of my favourites from this but i enjoyed so many, although some i didn’t really understand

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

(ARC copy)
I was fascinated by this collection for several reasons. One is that it introduced me to a whole lot of poets (from the past 50 years) I have not known before. I was enjoying the sense of recognition with those I knew, and the excitement of discovery for those I want to read more from now. Obviously the goal of the collection was to introduce readers to nature poetry written by global majority poets - but through this lens, it also challenges what qualifies as "nature poetry" and even what qualifies as "nature." The poems had a wide range of styles, forms, and topics; and themes woven through such as identity, immigration, climate crisis, colonialism, etc. There were several that deeply touched me and invited longer contemplation. Others knowingly challenged the reader with text that was disjointed, multilingual, written in dialect, or spliced into other texts (the latter one, Karen McCarthy Woolf's "Horse Chestnut I" was one of my favorites in the book). It would sound like a cliché to say it is a diverse collection, but I don't only mean it by the ethnic identities of the poets. I love reading nature poetry, but I have often felt that some collections I came across presented a very pretty, "poetic", inspiring image of nature. The nature represented in these poems is different. Viscerally connected to humans in all ways good and bad, messy, fascinating, ever-present, meaningful, metaphorical, mythical, personal. It was refreshing to venture beyond admiration into emotional and artistic complexity.

[Avalon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection sets out its intention early to address imbalance in ecopoetics and nature writing, where current Western European traditions and authors are predominantly featured and prioritised. It also hopes to shift our perception of how we address Earth, Nature, and the Natural World, prompting us to think on how we 'constitute and perceive environmental consciousness' and the impact that has. I think it does well in these.

The differing voices and poetic styles in this anthology here have been edited into four marvelous sections by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf - Earth, Air, Water, Fire. Each do bring a sense of structure and flow to the collection, and there was only perhaps once that I felt initially confused about a poems placement within one space over another (but that's if I am being slightly pedantic.)

Shivanee Ramlochan, Mary Jean Chan, Kwame Dawes, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Malika Booker, Oluwaseun Olayiwola were some of the standouts for me here, but there were also other Poets new and old I was introduced to. Because of the variety of voices, you do see a range of forms and themes naturally challenging your personal taste and stylistic preferences, but that can be a good thing.

I was overall impressed with the curation, depth of talent, and representation showcased here.

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Faber for the E-ARC! This E-ARC was sent to me in exchange for an honest review!

I very much enjoyed this!
I loved the introduction, it was actually my favorite part of the collection. Please don't skip it when you pick this up.
I loved the representation-It was FULL of BIPOC authors from all over and I adored the diversity.
It was also the perfect read for Earth day that recently passed! All the poems each had their own unique flavor of love for Mother Earth and her heart and hum. I really, really enjoyed this one.

[Lizzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional selection of poems, highlighting a diverse rage of poets, on a broad range of ecological subjects.

[Sarah Spaulding Avento · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really appreciate the reframing of eco-poetry back to colonialism and its effects. I do think North American ecopoetics often misses this point, so it’s good to see a global perspective collection.